Deuteronomy 8:17-18 “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.”

In today’s charged political climate, the reasons for poverty or wealth are hotly debated: are they the product of special privilege or simple cause and effect; abuse of power or hard work and sweat; a matter of victims and oppressors or lazy freeloaders and honest laborers. This morning Moses would like to say, “Wait a minute. You are all forgetting something.”

“Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.” The circumstances that have made most of us relatively prosperous are not solely the result of our own efforts. They are not even mostly the result of our own efforts. The talents that made us employable were not our own creation. God himself wired our brains for the skills we have.

The health that allowed us to put our talents to use is not merely the result of healthy diet, exercise, and choices. In the mid-1980’s, Jim Fixx, whose books popularized running and helped lead the fitness revolution, died of a heart attack at the age of 52. There are countless diseases and conditions from which you and I have been spared purely by the grace of God.

We did not choose to be born into one of the world’s strongest economies and best political systems. But even if we did, there is no guarantee that we would personally do well in them, or that the system itself will continue to work.

God’s hand has kept wars from being waged on our own soil, and limited the severity of natural catastrophes, and prevented politicians more corrupt than the ones we already have from rising to power. More than one empire has fallen from power and prosperity to subjection and poverty in just a matter of days.

But here we sit in the comfort of our climate-controlled homes and vehicles, well-fed and clothed, about as safe and secure as any people have ever been.

Why? Because all is grace. The same God who sacrificed his own Son for an ungrateful world, who found us and claimed us as his own when we weren’t looking for him, who forgives us not because we deserve it but because that’s just the way he is, continues to feed and care for us, often in a princely way. All is grace, and let’s not be blind to his ongoing generosity.